The Hidden History of Bletchley Park

A Social and Organisational History, 1939–1945

C. Smith

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137484932
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

This book is a 'hidden' history of Bletchley Park during the Second World War, which explores the agency from a social and gendered perspective. It examines themes such as: the experience of wartime staff members; the town in which the agency was situated; and the cultural influences on the wartime evolution of the agency.

1

The Organisation of the Government Code and Cypher School

Introduction

The Government Code and Cypher School underwent considerable change during the Second World War. The agency left the interwar period built on a collegiate model, but over the course of the war GC&CS mechanised and bureaucratised its processes and increasingly came to resemble a factory operated on production-line principles. The problem of attacking mechanised cipher systems required a mechanised cryptanalytic approach. The wholesale incorporation of machines fundamentally altered the agency. The machine sections operated on factory principles, far removed in both organisational and operational terms from the cryptanalysis sections which operated on collegiate principles. Mechanisation allowed GC&CS to process vast numbers of Axis wireless transmissions. The scale of the agency’s success necessitated the incorporation of a vast index and catalogue of information derived from those transmissions, which itself demanded a dedicated mechanised section. The addition of these sections, and with them numerous new staff members, increased the administrative and clerical demands on the agency and new sections emerged to address these problems. The result was that numerous new sections were incorporated into the agency over the course of the war and that the mandate of pre-existing sections changed.

The aim of this chapter is to outline the evolving organisational and administrative structure of GC&CS from its foundation as a small cryptanalysis bureau in 1919 to a large intelligence factory with nearly 9,000 staff members at the height of the Second World War. Not only did the organisational structure of the agency change, but so too did its physical geography. The ad hoc nature of these changes left the agency with an often bewildering array of sections arranged with little apparent order. This was also reflected by the construction of new buildings to house these emerging sections. As sections expanded beyond the confines of the physical buildings they inhabited, new buildings were constructed and sections migrated across the estate. However, because sections typically took the name of the original building in which they were housed, the relationship between the name of the section and the name of the building in which it was housed often did not correlate. Thus, like the expansion of the agency’s organisational structure, the changes to the physical geography of the agency was an organic process.

This chapter will identify key sections which emerged within the agency and explain their function. It will navigate the transformation of the agency organisationally and map its spread across the Bletchley Park estate and beyond. The other main aim of this chapter is to outline a running theme throughout this book: the response of the agency to the administrative problems created by a rapid expansion in size and scale of its operations.

Institutional evacuation in wartime

GC&CS was by no means the only organisation to be evacuated during the war. Numerous institutions, including arms of government and private businesses, were evacuated – some in whole, others in part – from urban areas. To offer several examples, the Air Ministry evacuated significant elements of its staff to Harrogate while the Admiralty moved 4,000 of its staff to Bath.¹ Similarly, buildings were requisitioned in the Thames Valley and Hampshire to accommodate Vickers and Supermarine, both involved in aircraft production, following the first daylight bombing raids directed at their respective factories in Weybridge and Southampton.² This policy of evacuating key industry and the machinery of government from areas deemed to be at risk dated from 1936 when the government began examining the problem of defence planning.³

The mass movement of such institutions brought with it considerable administrative and organisational issues. Among the most pressing, when it came to evacuating industry, was selecting a region with a suitable infrastructure and workforce already in place to accommodate new factories. The economic depression during the interwar period partially solved these problems, as the southward migration of industry had left many industrial areas with empty or underutilised factories and high unemployment. For example, the War Office employed a number of textile manufacturing firms in Lancashire for shell production.⁴ Nevertheless, finding suitable locations for new factories proved problematic, particularly by 1940, when widespread unemployment had ceased.⁵ This resulted in persistent problems, such as: locating suitable sites for factories; acquiring enough labour; and providing billets and transport for workers. Most of these problems were also shared by GC&CS following its departure from London to Bletchley.

Organisational problems, evacuation and growth

To discuss the organisation of Bletchley Park is perhaps misleading, because Bletchley Park was only one war station within a larger agency. Bletchley Park was the headquarters of GC&CS and its largest station, but the organisation actually extended beyond the gates of Bletchley Park. GC&CS had a number of outstations, including nearby sites at Gayhurst Manor, Wavendon House and Adstock. Indeed, GC&CS spread still further, retaining offices in London and – when the ‘Y Service’ stations are considered – more widely still. The Y Service was Britain’s wireless intercept service and was run by a number of different agencies; its role during the war was to intercept radio traffic and despatch the messages to GC&CS for analysis. While not actually a part of GC&CS, the Y Service was an integral part of the work in which GC&CS was engaged, and in a discussion of GC&CS’s organisation can not be discounted. As a result, it is difficult to establish the true size of Britain’s codebreaking establishment as the operation was spread over multiple locations and handled by different agencies, not just GC&CS at Bletchley Park itself.

When GC&CS was first established in 1919 it numbered 53 individuals, half of whom were actively engaged in the business of cryptanalysis.⁶ The organisation was headed by Commander Alistair Denniston beneath whom were 24 officers.⁷ To support this establishment a clerical staff of less than 30 was employed. Over time the organisation grew and by 1925 a further six officers were added to the establishment. GC&CS was noted during the Second World War as having a comparatively loose hierarchy, with junior staff working alongside senior officers, a fact that was true of its earliest days. As Denniston wrote in December 1944, ‘there was little or no difference in the work of good juniors and seniors’.⁸

In 1937 the head of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), Admiral Hugh Sinclair (also known as ‘C’ – the title given to the head of the SIS), concluded that contingency plans needed to be formed to increase the size of the establishment in wartime. He instructed GC&CS to earmark and train potential recruits from the universities to join the agency should Britain find herself involved in another major war. The Treasury sanctioned the proposal, which was to increase GC&CS by a further 56 officers and 30 female linguists in the eventuality of a war.⁹ Over the course of the interwar period the clerical staff increased in number to in excess of 50.¹⁰ The result was that when Britain declared war on Germany in 1939, the agency had a staff of 200 individuals.¹¹

In 1938 Bletchley Park was acquired for GC&CS, and its sister organisations SIS and SOE, as home for the two agencies in the event that war should necessitate evacuation. By August 1939, with war on the horizon, the decision was taken to carry out those plans.¹² Bletchley Park was a logical choice for a war station for a number of reasons. While only 50 miles from London, Bletchley was sufficiently distant from large urban areas to be deemed safe from the threat of German bombers. Moreover, it contained several large buildings that could accommodate staff. These included the mansion as well as a number of cottages.¹³ The estate also had grounds of approximately 60 acres, which, though unanticipated at the time of purchase, would later facilitate considerable building work.¹⁴

The town of Bletchley also provided some advantages of its own. For example, Bletchley had significant rail links, being located on the West Coast Main Line as well as the Oxford–Cambridge Varsity Line. These links allowed easy travel between Bletchley and London, as well as the key recruitment grounds of Oxford and Cambridge. The town also had the added benefit of granting easy road to London, being located on the A5 section of Watling Street. These reasons are often cited as key factors in the choice of Bletchley Park as the wartime location for GC&CS.¹⁵ Useful though these connections proved, recent research suggests that the key advantage Bletchley offered was its position on a major artery of the telephone network.¹⁶ Proximity to Britain’s north–south telephone lines provided ready teleprinter access to government ministries in London as well as the Y Services listening stations dotted around the country.¹⁷

Despite the considerable room for expansion offered by the estate, in 1938 nobody had envisioned the scale of the agency’s eventual growth. The organisation actually extended well beyond the gates of Bletchley Park. Not only did it retain offices in London, but over the course of the war acquired its outstations. The internal organisation and administration of Bletchley Park at various stages throughout the war became heavily strained, as competing demands on the agency’s resources became increasingly pronounced, limiting efficiency. Client ministries, such as the War Office, Foreign Office, Admiralty and Air Ministry, attempted to exert control over GC&CS. These competing organisational pressures led to the foundation of multiple new sections to tackle problems as they arose and a major reorganisation of the agency took place in 1942. Additionally, the pressures of increasing demand and rapid growth resulted in physical geographical changes to Bletchley Park. As sections grew in size they required more workspace. The demand for workspace led to the construction of multiple wooden huts and concrete blocks across the Bletchley Park estate.

Once at Bletchley Park, GC&CS continued to grow in size and its internal structure became increasingly complex. This was because GC&CS was the joint venture of several different agencies: the Foreign Office, and the three military services. These various ministries and services all provided personnel and resources to GC&CS, and in exchange expected GC&CS to work for them. As such, GC&CS had varying demands upon it from these different agencies, yet it lacked the resources to adequately meet those competing demands. As a result, the agency had to prioritise some work for some ministries at the expense of others. In a memorandum circulated in March 1943, Bletchley Park’s then second-in-command, Nigel de Grey, described the organisation.¹⁸

I suppose that if you were to put forward a scheme of organizations for any service which laid down as its basis that it would take a lot of men and women from civil life and dress some of them in one kind of clothes and some in another, and told all those dressed in black that they came under one set of rules and all those in white under another and so on and then told them that they had a double allegiance, firstly to the ruler of their black or white motley party and secondly to a man who would partly rule over all of them, but only partly, any ordinary tribunal would order you to take rest in an asylum.¹⁹

Clearly, the organisation had a peculiar and extremely confused structure; a result of dual allegiances of various sections and section heads, both to their home service or agency, but also to GC&CS. Establishing a clear overview of the organisational structure of the agency is made more complicated by the compartmentalisation of the organisation. From the point of view of maintaining security this measure was essential as it limited the amount of information available to any single person. As a result, very few individuals within GC&CS knew the work being performed outside their sections, and nor were they aware of the full extent of the agency’s activities.²⁰ Matters were complicated further by major administrative reorganisation in 1942. This reorganisation saw both major administrative restructuring and the emergence of new leadership both within individual sections and at the highest level: the most notable casualty of the reorganisation was the replacement of Commander Alistair Denniston by Commander Edward Travis as the head of GC&CS in February 1942. The mounting organisational problems within GC&CS had become acute and GC&CS’s client ministries lost confidence in the agency’s leadership.

The role and function of sections within GC&CS

Identifying sections and painting a broad geographical picture of how GC&CS functioned is necessary, not only to understand how GC&CS was structured and operated but also to understand how it developed over the course of the war. In doing so it also becomes increasingly clear that this process of development was distinctly ad hoc in nature. Sections were formed, expanded, gained responsibilities, lost responsibilities and moved location fairly r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1  The Organisation of the Government Code and Cypher School
• 2  Recruitment at GCCS: 19191945
• 3  On-Duty Life at the Government Code and Cypher School
• 4  The Administration of Off-Duty Life and Staff Welfare
• 5  Off-Duty Life: Staff Experience
• 6  Bletchley Park and Its Impact on the Local Community
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index